“But that would mean . . .” Mirin couldn’t finish her phrase.

“That Annabel, Catriona, and Maisie have been kidnapped by a Breccan and taken into the west.”

Mirin closed her eyes, as if his words had struck her. She remained silent, so Jack began to speak, as if he had uncovered an old ballad.

“Long ago, you came to love your greatest enemy. A man of the west. I don’t know how he crossed the clan line unnoticed by the east, but he did, and you held the secret of him until I made that impossible. And so you led us all to believe I was the bastard of an unfaithful man in the east, and you wove the truth into a plaid because the threads would never betray or condemn you. Once I was sent away to the mainland, you must have seen him again, for Frae came into the world, and our two lives defied everything—east, west, and the hatred that thrives in between. You had no choice but to raise her as you raised me, as a Tamerlaine without a father.”

Mirin looked at him. Her face was pallid, but her eyes were lucid and dark as new moons, and she held Jack’s gaze. She laced her fingers together to hide their shaking.

“Do I speak truth, Mum?”

“Yes, Jack. Your father is a Breccan. But he wouldn’t steal children from the east.”

“And how do you know that?” Jack’s temper flared. “Lasses are going missing, vanishing into the mist, taken by the west. Could my father be the force behind it all? Because he was robbed of his own children?”

“He would never steal a child,” Mirin said again in a voice like iron. “Your father is a good man—the best I have ever known—and he has loved you and Frae from a distance, staying in his place so that you could have a whole life with me rather than a divided one.”

“But he has crossed into Tamerlaine territory without notice,” Jack countered. “He has broken the laws of the isle and has stood in this cottage with you, time and time again. He has trespassed and roamed the east, which means there is a break in the clan line, and the Breccans know of it and are using it as a weapon against us, taking lasses one by one. Stealing the daughters of innocent people.”

Mirin shook her head, but her eyes gleamed with tears. “Your father wouldn’t do this, Jack.”